{"id":36225,"date":"2015-12-30T06:06:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T13:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=36225"},"modified":"2015-12-30T07:08:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T14:08:58","slug":"american-kestrel-potpourri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/30\/american-kestrel-potpourri\/","title":{"rendered":"American Kestrel Potpourri"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several readers have said recently that they’d like to see occasional images from my archives. These\u00a0American Kestrel\u00a0photos are my attempt to deliver on that request.\u00a0Most were\u00a0taken at Farmington\u00a0between 2009 and 2012 and I don’t believe I’ve posted any of them before though I have posted other images of a couple of these birds.<\/p>\n

At the last minute I noticed that all but one of them are males. I’ll make up for that\u00a0shortsightedness in the future because I believe the females to be every bit as appealing as the males in their own more subtle\u00a0way.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This male posed for me for a very long time as he preened on one of the favorite kestrel perches at Farmington (sadly this perch is gone now). I was seldom able to get a look at his eye (or a catch light) during this\u00a0session but I think the\u00a0pose and behavior partially atone for that.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 800, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This female was feeding on a vole on a cold, snowy morning. I like the surprised, “pretending to be\u00a0innocent” look on her face, as if she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me the primary appeal of this image is\u00a0the unusual wing position. I don’t think I’ve ever photographed kestrel wings held higher than this at takeoff.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/10, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This bird was fluffed up and\u00a0nestled down in\u00a0rabbitbrush on a very cold morning along the Antelope Island causeway. To me he almost looks cuddly. The image is full frame.<\/p>\n

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\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

A “one-armed” wing stretch.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

High key images aren’t at the top of my list of favorite types of\u00a0photos but it isn’t often that I catch a kestrel in flight. This shot is nearly full frame.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/p>\n

1\/1250, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS\u00a0USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

This male was huddled at the base of a clump of trees to escape a fierce wind in front of an incoming storm. He was only inches from the ground where he was a little more protected from the howling\u00a0gale. Since\u00a0the wind was blowing overhead branches around, the light on the kestrel was dappled and constantly changing so I just fired away and hoped I’d get some images with interesting light on the bird.<\/p>\n

Most everyone loves these fierce little falcons so I hope you enjoy some of these images.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several readers have said recently that they’d like to see occasional images from my archives. These American Kestrel photos are my attempt to deliver on that request.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[340,3,334,2782,392],"tags":[28,31,131,1008,137,146,1398,211,255,256,1424,297,315],"class_list":["post-36225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-american-kestrel","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-female","tag-flight","tag-full-frame","tag-male","tag-preening","tag-prey","tag-rabbit-brush","tag-stretch","tag-vole"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/american-kestrel-2448-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9qh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}